There were mistakes all round — and it was one final error by hapless referee Thabo Nkosi that paved the way for Kaizer Chiefs to enter the last 16 of the Nedbank Cup with a tense 2-0 extra-time victory over Ajax Cape Town at King’s Park Stadium in Durban on Friday night.
Two men who shot and killed a two-year-old baby during a house robbery last year were sentenced to life imprisonment plus 20 years by the Johannesburg High Court on Friday, police said. Steve Hlongwane (18) and George Nyangale (22) broke into a house in Lyndhurst on April 12 last year.
Former bouncer Jonathan Street was convicted of murder and attempted murder by the Johannesburg High Court on Friday. He is to be sentenced on March 26. Judge Nico Coetzee found that Street shot and killed Kyle Norris (18) in the Max-X club in Edenvale on the East Rand on November 19 2006.
The African National Congress’s (ANC) national executive committee (NEC) was locked behind closed doors on Friday at its second meeting since the Polokwane national conference in December, media reports said. The aim was to rid the party of internal wrangles simmering since its policy conference.
Racial tension within Mpumalanga police stations has reached ”ugly” proportions, says the province’s safety and security minister, Fish Mahlalela. ”The tension between black and white officers at police stations is ugly and dents … the fight against crime,” he told a meeting on Thursday.
The 2010 World Cup soccer tournament is a prime target for corruption, editors were told in Johannesburg on Friday. ”There is a real fear that South Africa, in the staging of the World Cup, could look bad in the eyes of the world because of the dangers of corruption,” said Professor Danny Titus, of Transparency International.
The government and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) should bury the hatchet and unite in the fight against HIV/Aids, African National Congress (ANC) national executive committee member Zweli Mkhize told delegates at the TAC’s fourth national congress on Friday.
A two-year-old boy whose genitals were badly mutilated was left without medical attention for about an hour at the Kagiso police station on the West Rand, media reports said on Friday. Police said they could not transport him to a hospital because of service policy, and a member of the public took him there instead.
”Just because we are poor doesn’t mean our brains can’t function properly,” said Zandile Gamede (16) at a laptop handover ceremony in Kliptown, Soweto, on Thursday. It is the first time that the international One Laptop per Child initiative has come to South Africa.
In the run-up to the Audi Jo’burg Fashion Week, three designers offer a glimpse of what to expect on the Newtown catwalks.
The government has to reduce South Africans’ dependence on grants, President Thabo Mbeki told community development workers at an indaba in Midrand on Friday. ”We have to cultivate that sentiment among our people to say, ‘I too have a responsibility to do something about my own development,”’ said Mbeki.
A kaleidoscope of African images and themes is a fitting backdrop for the debate the Jo’burg Art Fair, which opened to the public on Friday, has sparked about what it means to be African and an artist. The fair also has the art world buzzing about tensions between art and commerce.
Giving away free medicines, as Matthias Rath did with his vitamin products, is a well-known way of creating a market, the Treatment Action Campaign’s (TAC) counsel told the Cape High Court on Friday. Geoff Budlender was delivering final argument in the TAC’s bid for a court order forcing the government to act against Rath.
Although crime in public places has decreased, there has been an increase of crime in residential areas, Tshwane mayor Gwen Ramokgopa said on Friday. Delivering her State of the City address at the council offices in Pretoria, the mayor said that the city is concerned about the increase in ever more violent crimes in residential areas.
Nationalising the University of the Free State (UFS), ”to protect the national asset”, must start immediately, the African National Congress and its alliance partners said on Friday. About 1 000 workers from various unions marched to the UFS to hand over the demand, contained in a memorandum on racism at the institution.
Two of the country’s leading oil refineries severely affected by Tuesday night’s heavy downpour in Durban expect to be fully operational this weekend. Due to the rainstorm, at least 40% of the Engen refinery was non-operational over the past 48 hours, while the nearby Sapref plant was completely shut down.
Johannesburg may be the site of Gauteng’s newest airport, it was announced on Friday. An economic feasibility study will be conducted by the Johannesburg metro council to determine the merits of building a fifth airport in the province. Currently Gauteng is serviced by OR Tambo International, Lanseria and Grand Central airports.
The Department of Education criticised the KwaZulu-Natal branch of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) on Friday for holding a meeting at 10am on a school day, leaving children unattended. Director general Duncan Hindle said a principal had expressed his concern that at least 10 classes at his school were affected.
An armed gang stormed into a Durban bank on Friday, holding staff and customers at gunpoint, KwaZulu-Natal police said. ”Five armed suspects entered, took cash and a customer’s vehicle and fled,” said Superintendent Willie Olivier of Durban’s Organised Crime Unit
South Africans are not saving enough power, President Thabo Mbeki told a community development workers’ indaba [meeting] in Midrand on Friday. ”I get a sense that we haven’t quite got this message through that it’s a national challenge which requires a response by all South Africans,” he said.
Recent revelations on how the African National Congress used its investment arm Chancellor House to divert taxpayer’s money into its own coffers explains the ruling party’s obsession with black empowerment policy, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday.
The South African Rugby Union (Saru) has distanced itself from speculation that a Japanese team might be included in an expanded Super 14 competition. The idea was floated by Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O’Neill who was quoted as saying the idea of adding a Japanese team was on the agenda of Sanzar.
A top executive at the Coega industrial zone has assured Rio Tinto its planned smelter is still viable, despite the mining company’s decision to delay the project due to an electricity crisis. Rio announced on Thursday it would delay the project at Coega, near Port Elizabeth, because of power shortages in South Africa.
The resources index kept the JSE in firmer territory by midday on Friday, enhancing the morning session’s gains. At noon, the JSE’s broader all-share index was up 1%, driven by the 1,75% advance in the resources index. The gold mining index recovered 0,06% but the platinum mining index gave up 0,23%.
Orlando Pirates striker Gilbert Mushangazhike may be the symbol of a new wave of players trekking down to South Africa in search of Absa PSL’s hundreds of millions. A free agent after a stint in China with Jiangsu Shuntian, it is safe to conclude his decision to come to South Africa was as much professional as financial.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has had enough of the 2010 stadium labour disputes and has now asked Fifa president Sepp Blatter to intervene. There have been a number of strikes over wage disputes by construction workers working on the Green Point stadium in Cape Town, Durban’s Moses Mabhida stadium and the Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit.
Tim Modise’s days at the 2010 local organising committee (LOC) are numbered and the only questions are whether he will fall on his own sword or be axed, say informed sources close to the LOC and in the government. The sources told the Mail & Guardian the one-time star broadcaster is struggling with his role as chief officer of communications and marketing.
Eskom is to begin with ”pre-emptive load-shedding” on March 31, chief executive Jacob Maroga said on Friday. These deliberate power failures would last no more than two hours and would take place between 6am and 10pm. ”The system remains tight,” he told reporters in Midrand.
Allegations of disorder on the main campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) contained in an anonymous email circulated country were untrue, Rector Frederick Fourie said on Thursday. The email apparently makes reference to incidents of intimidation by black students on the main campus in Bloemfontein on March 4.
The African National Congress Youth League calls for a ban on alcohol advertising.
South Africans probably consume almost as much sorghum beer as they do lager, and roughly two-thirds of the traditional African beer is homebrewed.
The rise in production cost of grains such as wheat and maize was ”mind boggling”, Grain SA said on Thursday. The latest cost budgets for the production of wheat due to be planted in the coming months indicate that the variable cost component increased on average by 63%,” said Grain SA chairperson Neels Ferreira.